When We Really Are Alone
by masque queen
Summary: (et) Together, but at the same time, very much alone in their beautiful conundrum.


** When We Are Really Alone**

By The Masque Queen (formally known as never be normal)  
I'm giving you guys two weeks to realize that I'm changing my penname. So for my avid readers, few that I do have, I'm The Masque Queen.

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Real quick note- this is a one shot. I left it the way it is because I've got a plot boiling in my brain and if time persist and my head nags at me to undo this one shot and extend it, I've got a good way to open into the next chapter. But for now, here it is. Yea, if you read this, go read my other one. I'm almost dying to get a few more reviews on it. Thank you to _Pensively-Drifting_ for being my reviewer. One of the few who actually read and review my stuff nowadays. Thanks, you've boosted my morale somewhat.

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" Is this how we will leave it?"

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Time flickers in a heartbeat and a million moments are missed. In a world where time is of the essence and in a matter of seconds, life is led down an entirely new path, they stand together at the core.

Together and at the same time, very much alone in their beautiful conundrum.

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So many years it had been and it had all led down to this.

" Is this how we will leave it?" A plausible silence. Understandable.

_Yes… is this how we will really leave it? Well… I don't know. You tell me, my love. Is it? _

The snow had already began to fall and wisps of her hair cavorted in the wind to catch the miniscule particles of slush crystals.

The blow of the impending storm breezed against his pale face, questions raced back and forth within his mind. But when mind came to mind and reality hit, he was standing there with her. Together and alone, but a beautiful pair they made. A match of wealth, beauty, charm, sophistication, and their unfortunate forlorn aura. All snatched away with another query.

" We have fallen apart, haven't we?"

Another pause and then nod. And the expression on her face was one of a concealed and twisted agony. She knew the answer and she knew in herself that she had drifted from him as much as he had from her. Now, it was only a matter of divorce papers and an agreement. So the next question is…

Why the long face and melancholy smile?

Hidden her agony may be, but what could she hide from him?

Nothing. And mayhap… mayhap, that might have been the reason they were so perfect together. A match of many things it was, but it was a match of pure intellect and understanding. For who could understand them, but each other?

One had been left at the alter, the other was about to loose her beloved _to_ the alter. They knew what it felt like. They knew how to deal. And they both knew how to hide it very, very well.

But they are all grown up now. Sakura and Syaoroan no longer fought childishly or stared at each other from where they sat in class under curious, but shy eyes. They were engaged now and the Hiirigizawas were married. Have been married for the last year and a half.

But the long face was still there. And sad smile still graced her full soft lips. Tears welled slightly at the corners of her eyes. A sign most uncalled for and unfamiliar to the name of Tomoyo Hiirigizawa. She never cried out of sorrow. Perhaps out of joy, rare it may be, but never from sorrow.

And it isn't said that Eriol was heartless and did not care that after this, they were done for, but he was very composed. He's used to it. He was a mask, smiling when he willed, laughing when he felt the tickle in his head, but he never cried. Never demonstrated any kind of negative emotion unless you called his conniving and mischievous smirk a negative emotion.

Either way, while tears threatened to wet the snow under her feet, Eriol stood there quietly staring distantly to a place she could not reach him.

" If it pains you this much, my love, then I will stay with you." She would have spared him a glance, but then, could she take it?

It could have been worse, she mused. He could have just packed his bags and left before she came home from work, but he was English. An English gentlemen at that and he hadn't.

He was a man. Instead, he called her and asked to meet up with his wife for lunch.

Now, what started as a quiet, low-key lunch at Angelino's had turned into the fork in the road of their marriage.

It would be easy, she reasoned. They had no children. They were both young, in their late twenties. All they had to do was deal with the splitting of their finances and property and from there on, they were done for.

But then she realized how alone she was. Before, she had been a corpse. A pretty corpse fawned over by men who cared not for what was underneath the husk and the hollowness that accompanied it.

Could she really live without Eriol now? How much would it change? How hard would it be when she came home and there wasn't anyone sleeping on the couch, tie undone, shirt unbuttoned and shoes thrown haphazardly on the floor?

It was then that massive teardrops found their way colliding down her porcelain face. Oh how she would miss him if he was gone, but where were they going? Did they have plans for the future? What were their goals in life? A quiet family. A quaint, undisturbed home within a less urban community. All ideal and wonderful prospects, she was sure, but work. Work had kept them from each other and they were as estranged to each other as a vender to his morning customer.

So many questions, oh so many questions. Try as she might, they will never be answered for it had already begun: the unraveling of a mutual relationship.

The truth of it all was: neither he or she cared for the money or the businesses. It had all been about each other. Whether he got the home and she the businesses, it wouldn't have mattered.

It was the fact that their bond was fading and their curiosity of each other had waned to what now became a bitter departure.

" We will not die," she stopped and took a breath.

" If… if life has proven that we are not fit for each other." Once again, he inclined with his expressionless nod.

_So… he agrees_. She had hoped he would say something in protest, but… he agreed.

It would be nice if he could hold her hand right now and tell her everything would be fine and that tonight, when she came home, he'd be there waiting in his exhausted repose. It would be nice to say that when he went to work early tomorrow morning, he would spend at least half an hour watching her sleep. It would be nice… yes, it would. All of it.

But their love has met a rift. A realization of something that is either true or something conjured up in his insecurity. Their earlier "friendly turned fiery" liaison for each other had transformed into a disappointing, work-oriented affair.

Where will we be in twenty years if this is the way it is now? Will we end it in a loveless marriage with no children and no satisfaction that only a driven work habit can cure?

Of course, he would never ask that question. Least of all places here with her, but it was a question that he had thought over and over when he came home an hour earlier than she did and sat pondering of how life was meant to go if everyday was a routine as it was.

" No." She shook her bed of starless locks, a sparkling tear hit a snow grain in the wind.

" It would be most pathetic of me to ask you to stay."

" No, it will not. If you need my help, my company, I will stay."

How awful it felt to realize that she made him stay within a loveless marriage. No.

" No. I will be—all right." A vicious lie! Lo, a lie! A lie, indeed.

He exhaled a gust into the air, a visible steam of warmth mixed with the picking up of flurrying snow.

" So we end here."

Was it a desperate intake of air he had just heard? He glanced over, afraid to see what he would. Afraid to have her see her composed ex-husband cry or tear up.

Oh, how her mouth twisted sourly when the final whisper was carried to her ear.

And so… feeling utterly alone, yet now enveloped in the heat of his body, she heard him croon to her words. Words that truly felt like they were both really all right. That what had just occurred had been a phase overcome once again by both their brilliance. But it wasn't.

And she realized it when she came home and their penthouse seemed rather blank.

Then again the next morning when she woke up and the chair by her bed was empty, the bathroom vaguely smelling of his aftershave from the prior day, the closet a third empty of his clothes, the bed bare and vacant of an imprint that should have been his.

And missing work, she laid in bed, wasting the day away. Thinking over and over and over about all the things that went awry. How life now seems so gray even though, when together, they rarely saw each other.

Questions. Still so many left unanswered and more just never ceased to build up.

_Where did we go wrong?_

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Together and at the same time, very much alone in their beautiful conundrum. 

They stand together at the core.

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No longer.


End file.
